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All states and territories within Australia, save the Northern Territory, will cop some form of wild weather this weekend.

Queensland and New South Wales are set for yet another soaking- prompting flood fears – possible storms could lash parts of Western Australia, and cold temperatures across the south-east are set to continue into the weekend.

Forecaster at the Bureau of Meteorology (BoM) Jenny Sturrock said rain will start increasing across Queensland and NSW tomorrow.

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She said the states will experience falls of around 20-30mm each day, with some "isolated heavier falls".

"We are seeing some rainfall off a deepening trough today, continuing Saturday," Sturrock said, adding rain should ease on Sunday for Queensland and Monday for NSW.

"Those totals might not sound too scary (but) it is falling on very sodden ground," she said.

"With all of the heavy rainfall we've experienced and flooding, we're keeping a very close eye on things."

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Sturrock said heaviest falls are most likely along the coastal fringes, and in south-eastern parts of Queensland, which experienced flooding just last week.

"We are sort of keeping our eye on that Caboolture through responses there," she added.

The warning comes after an initial flood watch for minor flooding was issued for catchments between Rockhampton and Caboolture.

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Addressing the cold snap being felt across Tasmania, Victoria, NSW, the ACT and South Australia, Sturrock said the "wintery blast" has resulted in temperatures "around 4C below average".

"It's dropping well close to the zero mark into the -3C for the alpine areas," she explained.

"Just a nice wintery blast to remind us winter is on its way."

Meanwhile the bureau's five-day forecast shows Perth could be hit by a "squally thunderstorm" Sunday afternoon.

A northwest cloud band is dragging cloud, showers and isolated storms over the state.

Read on to find out what the weather is doing across the nation's capitals today.

Brisbane

Showers are increasing in Brisbane, with the bureau predicting between three to six millimetres of rain. The temperature will reach a maximum of 22C.

Sydney

The Harbour City will also see rain today, with six to 15 millimetres falls forecast. The mercury will climb to 20C.

Melbourne

Melbourne will be partly cloudy with a top temperature of 16C.

Canberra

Similar conditions will be felt in Canberra, which will be covered with cloud. The temperatures will reach 15C.

Hobart

The mercury will hit a maximum of 14C in Hobart. It too will be partly cloudy.

Adelaide

South Australia's capital will be mostly sunny with a top temperature of 18C.

Darwin

It will be a sunny, 35C day in Darwin.

Perth

And finally Perth will see showers today, with falls of one to three millimetres forecast. Showers are most likely in the morning and afternoon.

Temperatures will reach 21C.

A Russian soldier facing the first war crimes trial since the start of the war in Ukraine testified Thursday that he shot a civilian on orders from two officers and pleaded for his victim's widow to forgive him.

Sgt. Vadim Shishimarin told the court that the officer insisted that the Ukrainian man, who was speaking on his cellphone, could pinpoint their location to the Ukrainian forces.

The 21-year-old sergeant could get life in prison if convicted of shooting the Ukrainian man in the head through an open car window in a village in the northeastern Sumy region on February 28, four days into the Russian invasion.

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Looking subdued, Shishimarin said he at first disobeyed his immediate commanding officer's order to shoot the unarmed civilian but had no other choice but to follow the order when it was repeated forcefully by another officer.

Shishimarin pleaded guilty to the charges during Wednesday's hearing.

On Thursday, he asked the victim's widow, who also appeared in the trial, to forgive him for what he did.

"I realize that you can't forgive me, but I'm pleading you for forgiveness," Shishimarin said.

The woman, Kateryna Shelipova, said her 62-year-old husband, Oleksandr Shelipov, got out to check what was going on when gunshots rang just outside their home. When the shooting ceased shortly after, she walked out and found her husband shot dead just outside their home.

"He was all to me. He was my defender," she said.

Shelipova told the court that Shishimarin deserves a life sentence for killing her husband but added that she wouldn't mind if he's exchanged as part of a possible prisoner swap with Russia for the surrendered Ukrainian defenders of the Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol.

The prosecutor asked for a life sentence for Shishimarin and the trial adjourned until Friday.

Shishimarin, a captured member of a Russian tank unit, is being prosecuted under a section of the Ukrainian criminal code that addresses the laws and customs of war.

Ukrainian Prosecutor General Iryna Venediktova previously said her office was readying war crimes cases against 41 Russian soldiers for offenses that included bombing civilian infrastructure, killing civilians, rape and looting. It was not immediately clear how many of the suspects are in Ukrainian hands and how many would be tried in absentia.

As the inaugural war-crimes case in Ukraine, Shishimarin's prosecution was being watched closely. Investigators have been collecting evidence of possible war crimes to bring before the International Criminal Court in The Hague.

Four species of Australian tarantulas are among more than 1000 popular arachnid species being traded live for pets in an unmonitored network around the world.

A world-first study, published in Communications Biology, has found over 1200 species of spiders, scorpions and other arachnids are being traded as pets.

Of those 1200 species in trade, more than 100 had been recently described.

China had the largest number of animals caught for live trade export, followed by Brazil and Australia.

Lead author Dr Alice Hughes, from the University of Hong Kong, said two-thirds of individual spiders from all traded species were caught in the wild, which has a drastic impact on populations.

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"We found for about 75 per cent of species they only live in one country and 95 per cent were in less than five countries," Hughes told 9News.com.au, explaining a wild population is crucial for the future survival of many of these species.

"It means if you have species that only occur in a small number of countries going into trade, mainly from the wild, then we don't know what impact that has on the wild population.

"You're having a long-term impact on that species' ability to survive into the future, (but) most people if they walk into a pet shop would assume that animal would be have bred in the vicinity, instead of coming from the wild."

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The 'striking' species that typifies the threat faced by arachnids

Hughes recalled one instance in 2019 where a trader managed to extract location data from a colourful spider photo shared online.

The species Birupes simoroxigorum, also known as the Sarawak Blue-Legged Tarantula, was a new one – native to Malaysia.

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"Someone managed to pull out the exact location from that photo, goes there, collects the spider and then imports it without any permits," Hughes said.

"(They) take it home, describe the species and name it after their kids.

"It was a new species, and you can now buy them online for a couple hundred dollars.

"If you're describing a new species in 2019 they're most likely really site-endemic species. So it's really easy for an entire population to be collected out for trade."

While concerning, that is not technically illegal in most cases, unless there are country specific laws that prohibit trade.

Hughes added to date, the only arachnid species that have a CITES listing to regulate trade are tarantulas and the Emperor Scorpion.

The tarantulas make desirable pets as they are "long-lived", with many making "whistling" sounds.

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That's why four species of Australian tarantulas – including the Queensland Whistling Tarantula and Brush Tarantula – made the list.

Those were the most sought-after Australian species, with Hughes noting there were just under 100 Australian arachnid species in trade in total.

Tracking who is buying these spiders and where they are going is hard, but Hughes suspects countries such as Belgium and Germany are up there.

"We know those countries are really big at buying animals," Hughes said, saying a market is also "starting to grow" in countries like China.

"The Western market is huge for this kind of thing, but almost everywhere is buying them.

"We also found strange niche markets in places like Japan."

While Australia has strict biosecurity laws governing what wildlife can be brought in Hughes has noticed a trend; what emerges in America as a popular pet makes it way to our shores.

"We didn't find that many shops in Australia, but that doesn't mean they're not there," Hughes said.

"They're certainly there."

A young diver came face to face with a three-metre-bull shark that "rammed" him near Royal Perth Yacht Club in the Swan River in Western Australia.

Bailey Haffner, 20, was cleaning the hull of his friend's boat in Matilda Bay waters yesterday when the predator emerged from the murky depths.

Haffner said the attack came without warning.

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"It was quite a forceful 'thump', you could feel how thick it was," Haffner told 9News.

"It knocked me as if I was in thin air.

"It all happened in a split second…(it) sort of did a turn and kicked me off the hull of the boat."

Haffner said he was so shocked after the attack he launched himself onto the nearby jetty.

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"I was just going so fast I leapt out of the water," he said.

General Manager of Royal Perth Yacht Club Stuart Walton encountered Haffner after the encounter and said he was "quite shaken".

"He came out of the water and said 'right, I'm not carrying on with that job anymore," Walton said.

"He got in his car and left".

Bull sharks are known to frequent the Swan River.

In January last year Cameron Wrathall was attacked by a shark, believed to be a bull, in the waterway.

He was rushed to Royal Perth Hospital by ambulance with a 30cm bite to his leg after two kayakers came to his rescue.

The species is known to be aggressive and can frequent "a wide range of habitats from coastal marine and estuarine to freshwater," according to WA'S Department of Parks and Wildlife.